Egg On Mao: The Story of An Ordinary Man Who Defaced An Icon and Unmasked A Dictatorship - Synopsis

Synopsis

The story opens with three men – Lu Decheng, Yu Dongyue, and Yu Zhijian – who have just defaced Mao Zedong’s portrait in Tiananmen Square in 1989. Decheng, Dongyue, and Zhijian are three friends from Southern China who have traveled to Beijing to express their sentiment towards the Chinese Communist Party. The leading character, Decheng, is the activist on which this book is inspired upon. As the story unfolds, discontent and frustration are shown through Decheng’s life and the people surrounding him – from the education reforms of the Cultural Revolution to the Protest of 1989. Decheng’s friend, Zhijan, a fellow activist who took part in defacing the portrait, express the reasons why the three vandalized the portrait: “to motivate the student leadership to question the legitimacy of the Communist regime itself, and therefore its very authority to impose a state of martial law.” Throughout the book, Chong reveals events in Decheng’s life that lead up his decision – from his refusal to cry on cue with his classmates after Mao’s death to hearing about the brutality of the Chinese Communist Party from his grandmother. After the activists’ act of vandalism, the three are sentenced to prison. During his imprisonment, Decheng’s wife divorces him. Years later, upon his return to Liuyang, Hunan, he remarries. The story has alternating chapters, shifting through periods of Decheng’s life, from his time in prison to memories earlier in his adolescent years. The book ends with the moments leading up to the defacing of Mao’s portrait.